Eucalyptus phoenix
Molyneux & Forrester Brumby Mallee-gumMallee to 5 m tall; bark smooth, white to light grey, sometime with a short basal stocking of flaky bark. Seedling leaves initially subsessile and opposite with hispid margins; juvenile leaves petiolate, alternate, ovate, to 8 cm long, 4 cm wide, slightly discolorous, light green or blue-green; adult leaves petiolate, alternate, lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, 8–10 cm long, 1–2 cm wide, concolorous, glossy, green; intramarginal vein remote from edge; reticulation sparse, with numerous island oil glands. Inflorescences axillary, unbranched, sometimes paired; peduncles to 1.4 cm long, 5–11-flowered; buds pedicellate, clavate, to 0.8 cm long, 0.4 cm diam., faintly warty, no scar; operculum conical; stamens irregularly flexed; anthers dorsifixed, reniform; ovules in 2 vertical rows; flowers white. Fruit subsessile or shortly pedicellate, hemispherical, 0.8 cm long and wide; disc narrow, more or less level; valves 3 or 4, rim level; seed dark brown, pyramidal but distorted by one curved face, hilum ventral. Flowers late spring to early summer.
EGU, VAlp. Known from a single small population at Brumby Point on the Nunniong Plateau in subalpine woodland with other mallee eucalypts.
Eucalyptus phoenix appears to have its nearest affinity with E. mackintii through the shared hispid seedling leaves and stems, the buds with a conical operculum and similar fruit shape. The new species differs in its mallee habit, smooth bark, occasionally paired peduncles, pedicellate buds (sessile in E. mackintii) and fruit with a narrow, more or less level disc (broader, more or less ascending in E. mackintii). Superficially, plants resemble Eucalyptus kybeanensis, but are clearly distinguished from that species by the broader juvenile leaves and larger buds with a conical (c.f. hemispherical) operculum.
Molyneux, W.M.; Forrester, S.G. (2013). A new mallee species Eucalyptus phoenix (Myrtaceae) from Brumby Point, East Gippsland, Victoria. Muelleria 31: 65–68.